What we're working to address

The purpose of Parkland Food Bank is to address food insecurity among residents of Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Parkland County by providing weekly access to healthy food, to individuals and families. But what exactly is food insecurity??

•Food insecurity is the inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints and is a serious public health problem in Canada. It negatively impacts physical, mental, and social health, and costs our healthcare system considerably.

•Food insecurity situations range from worrying about running out of food to going for whole days without eating, due to inadequate finances. Food insecurity is more prevalent among households with children under the age of 18, particularly those headed by single mothers.

•Exposure to severe food insecurity leaves an indelible mark on children’s wellbeing, manifesting in greater risks for conditions like asthma, depression, and suicidal ideation in adolescence and early adulthood.

Our Strategies

Any resident of Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, or Parkland County can access emergency food by coming to the food bank. We do have a screening process in place not only to make sure we are helping the right people, but more importantly, to open the doors of communication so we can see if there are any other resources in the community that can help our clients.

Creating Change

There are many reasons why our neighbours face situation where they simply cannot make enough money to purchase their own food.

Job Loss, divorce, new to the community.

But there are two situations we see the most.

Many in our community face either permanent disabilities or sudden illness.

We see a lot of our clients struggle every day with cancer, mental illness, or an injury that keeps them from working or keeps them relying on a fixed income that comes up short of meeting their basic needs.

We also see the needs of the working poor in our community. People working full time but make under the living wage amount of our area. This could be anyone from your cashier at Costco to the receptionist at your doctors office.

Long-term Desired Outcome

Parkland Food Bank simply reflects the generosity of our community as it receives 100% of the food and money it takes to operate from the individuals, businesses and organizations from the Tri Region. Last year we received over 1.6 million dollars worth of food.

As another new year presses on, there are 2 main ways we are looking to move forward. We are always striving to improve access to food in our community and to improve the quality of food we give.

Our goal by the end of 2018 is to end all food waste in the TriRegion through our food rescue program. Rescued food gives us access to food that is not longer suitable for sale, but is still good for human consumption. Rescued food currently makes up 55% of all food we receive.

We are currently assisting 4 schools and 3 other food banks with food for programming. We are building a Food Hub that will be another avenue besides our hamper program to provide healthy food options to the food insecure in our region. We would be looking at providing access to all the schools in our area that want to provide breakfast, lunch or snack programs.

Our Programs

Basic Hamper Program

• Once every calendar month, clients can receive a Full Hamper: box of dry goods, milk, meat, eggs, pastry, produce and bread.
• Any week a client is not receiving a Full Hamper, they can come get a weekly hamper: bread, produce, pastry, yogurt, extra canned and frozen items, personal supplies or cleaning supplies.

H2 Hamper Program

• In response to the number of clients that do not have access to kitchen facilities (due to homelessness, living in hotel, etc.) we created the H2 Hamper program with ready to eat foods that do not need cooking or refrigeration. The hamper is designed to be small enough to carry in a backpack and can be accessed on a weekly basis.

Food Rescue collects all surplus food regardless of quality. Primarily fruit, vegetables, meats and dairy items that grocery retailers have traditionally thrown out. Our volunteers sort it to ensure that only the quality food is made available to people. Food that does not meet these standards is made available to local farmers to feed livestock.

Food Hub Program

PFB is working on expanding as a food hub for other organizations. We currently assist three other local food banks, a church lunch program and five schools in supplying them with food from our Food Rescue Program or we pick up food from distributors for the other organizations to come get from us in quantities they can transport and store.

Volunteer Program

Volunteers are the lifeblood of food bank operations. We simply could not provide the services we do without the members of our community stepping up to give their time and talents week after week here at the food bank. To learn more visit http://parklandfoodbank.org/get-involved/become-a-volunteer/

* Based on information the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) provides to CanadaHelps on a quarterly basis. Charities must file financial information within six months of the end of their fiscal year at the CRA. Charities may file more frequently. The Reporting Period End Date for the data presented is indicated in the chart.